Habibe Erkan

"It's a little challenging at times the hardest thing when immigrating is leaving my family and friends behind so I gradually lost contact with my friends."

Introductory Profile: About Habibe Erkan

Habibe Erkan is a loving mother, sister, and daughter but to me, she is also a determined and courageous woman. She was born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey along with her sister and two brothers. As a small child, she had a strong to desire to one day come to America and build a new path of her own. Now, she has been living in the United States for almost 20-years, is running a small jewelry business, and is raising two children.

My mother was born in Istanbul, Turkey. Throughout her early life, my mother wanted to accomplish two things, to become the first woman in her family to go to college and immigrate to America. After graduating from college, she became a biologist in a well-known hospital. She once got an opportunity to go on vacation in Baltimore and she took advantage of it. After coming to the United States a couple of times, she decided to leave Turkey to immigrate to America. Unfortunately, she had to leave her family and job and sacrificed a lot of things. Here is her own story about the immigration process she went through.